The news that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is now publicly committing to using the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) giant Atlas 5 rocket was no great surprise. However, his decision allows a noticeably clear opportunity for a ‘contrast and compare’ between the Bezos-backed Project Kuiper and arch-rival Elon Musk’s Starlink scheme. The two rivals are also […]

Jeff Bezos has contracted nine rocket launches with the United Launch Alliance (ULA) to launch his initial Project Kuiper low Earth orbiting (LEO) broadband-by-satellite craft. The contract means that for the time being he is not depending on his own Blue Origin rocket system. “We’re determined to make affordable broadband a reality for customers and […]

The US Space Force has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to the world’s emerging Low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellite operators (and would-be operators) for guidance on how the Space Force might buy broadband LEO services in the future. The Space Force’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office, acts as a centralised operation which acquires satellite-based communications […]

A report from investment bank Exane/BNPP says that today’s various satellite operators are supplying some 2,000 Gb/s of capacity (as at December 31st 2020 and using Northern Sky Research data). The bank suggests that this will grow ten-fold by the end of this year, and 30-fold before the end of this decade. This growth includes

The planet’s two richest individuals, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, are involved in a bitter slanging match over their satellite mega-constellations. Their rival businesses, SpaceX and Project Kuiper, have lodged tit-for-tat almost daily filings with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with SpaceX saying that Amazon’s Kuiper is guilty of “stifling competition”. SpaceX is already asking […]

The Jeff Bezos-backed Project Kuiper will see investment topping $10 billion, says Chris Quilty, senior researcher at Florida-based Quilty Analytics, in the firm’s latest Satcom Quarterly Briefing. The end result, for broadband consumers, could be impressive. Quilty is blunt, saying that Amazon’s involvement in the plan to launch 3236 satellites to Low Earth orbit (LEO) […]